Court orders contempt on Pakistan PM

Pakistan's top court began contempt proceedings on Monday against the prime minister for failing to carry out its order to reopen a corruption case against the president, ramping up pressure on the beleaguered civilian government and pushing the country deeper into political crisis.

The Supreme Court ruling opened up the possibility that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani could be prosecuted, imprisoned and dismissed at the hands of the judges.

It came as the government is locked in a conflict with the army, and boosted the sense the administration could fall, squeezed between the court and the powerful generals.

The court ordered Gilani to appear before the bench on Thursday to explain his refusal to open the corruption probe against President Asif Ali Zardari.

Gilani might choose not to attend the hearing, which could trigger his immediate disqualification from holding office, or pledge to open the graft case. That would carry a political cost, and is something that Zardari's ruling party has said it will never do.

The judges have ordered the government to write to Swiss authorities requesting they reopen a corruption case against Zardari that dates back to the 1990s and involves the jurisdiction of the Swiss courts. The government has refused, saying Zardari has immunity. Its supporters say the court is pursuing a vendetta against the country's civilian leadership.

The government also is at odds with the army over an unsigned memo delivered to Washington last year offering the US a raft of favourable security policies in exchange for its help in thwarting a supposed military coup.

The army was outraged by the memo and pushed the Supreme Court to open an inquiry into the scandal against the government's wishes. Some observers believe the court's pressure on the graft case is being orchestrated by the military to put maximum pressure on the government.

Pakistan has long been plagued by tension between the civilian government and the army, which has seized power in three coups since the country was founded in 1947. The government has given the generals control over foreign and security policy but the civilian leadership and the top brass have never seen eye-to-eye since Zardari and Gilani took office in 2008.

The head of the Supreme Court, Mohammad Iftikhar Chaudhry, has also clashed with Zardari.

Federal Law Minister Maula Bakhsh Chandio said the government would review the court's ruling and "obey the law and the constitution".

"This is not a small or an ordinary thing," he said outside the court. "This is a Supreme Court order."

The government has vowed to see out its term, scheduled to end in 2013, and oversee elections - the first time in the country's history that power would be handed over via the ballot box. But the crisis threatens to upend that, and some lawmakers in Zardari's party speculate that elections could be called earlier to try to soothe tensions.

Gilani criticised the army last week for cooperating with the Supreme Court probe into the memo scandal. He has said the standoff is nothing less than a choice between "democracy and dictatorship". Gilani's comments followed a warning from the generals of possible "grievous consequences" ahead.

Zardari has been vulnerable to prosecution since 2009 when the Supreme Court struck down an amnesty granting him and other leading political figures immunity from past graft cases. The court deemed the amnesty, which was granted in 2008, unconstitutional.

The court has zeroed in on one corruption investigation taken up by the Swiss government against Zardari that was halted in 2008 when Pakistani prosecutors, acting on the amnesty, told Swiss authorities to drop the case.